Wingham Fish-In Catch Reports 2013

[Steve Burke]

Hmmmm......Are we surrounding our hookbaits with fish-scaring freebies ? A bit revolutionary I know, but successful tactics for loners may well be quite different from trying to attract a shoal.

 

Interesting thought, Dave!

[AddictedToScopex]

Hmmmm......Are we surrounding our hookbaits with fish-scaring freebies ? A bit revolutionary I know, but successful tactics for loners may well be quite different from trying to attract a shoal.

That was actually a theory put forward by my brother to me on the weekend. He said single baits may be worth a go as everyone else seemed to be spodding and having limited success but then I worried about them not having enough attraction to bring fish in from distance. Have the fish become wary of free offerings now I wonder? I know Wingham isnt fished much but there have been a lot of fish caught so maybe there is a degree of learning going on?

Edited May 24, 2013 by AddictedToScopex

[Dave H]

In my limited experience of Wingham i may actually have a slightly improved fishing advantage i feel now. The older members are sticking to the methods as in swims and times of feeding etc. I never fished then so i started in a year when things changed maybe due to the weed or other factors i don’t know but considering it does now seem to be a 2^nd consecutive year of change i am making my own way a bit more now and don’t have any inclinations of following others from previous years. After all it’s hard to change from 10+ years of knowing where and when to fish. When i first fished Wingham i fished the first few popular swims i was told that were productive. It was a kind thing to do but i found it didn’t produce. I thought i was doing something wrong but i have been fishing all my life and i found my spots in the swims but they never produced. I think a few were surprised i didn’t and thought well he isn’t that good it’s easy to catch there. Well last year it was all change but nobody was to know that yet. As the season progressed old anglers started to not catch from these popular swims either this i must admit made me feel better as it was not just me. I had picked my first year that was also the first year of change. Indeed Budgie said that i had joined in Winghams first really bad season. I saw that as a negative until this year as i am bringing my own swims (which are hardly fished) more into play this year and it’s working although not on the numbers others will think but perhaps they have to accept change now where for me this is all i have ever known. Much easier for me to accept.

IMO and again it’s a shortened one without any past to go on is that all fish go in every swim and i believe that location is huge but you don’t have to move you just have to move your bait in THAT swim.

I have spent at least 4 hours in a new swim finding out what the topography is. If i have no luck i go again in the same swim and try again and again. If like all of us we have only 2 nights i can’t see the point in moving. Your ground bait is out but if you don’t catch within 24 hours you up all your gear for just 12 hours? I am sure it has worked but i bet not much.

That’s why i believe just move you bait in the swim foot by foot. The amount of times i hear that only 1 rod is producing and yet you might have another two 6 ft away. There was a spot i found in my first year and mentioned it to a bailiff and he said how did you know about that and i said i plummeted it. His face was a picture as this spot was about one foot square miss it and you blank. Get it and your chances increase 3 fold. It took me 4 hours to find that and within 1 hours i had 2 tench and a good sized perch out of it. Every swim i have fished has different depths. Maybe a few are on just the deeper all round but just a couple others may seem deep but they shallow up just for a fraction or drop off for a foot section so find them as they will be swimming at a certain hight so change depths too.

Again my opinion i think many of you are stuck in the past and need now to change tactics. I am just an average angler and many of you are much better than me but i think locations may have changed.

I recently caught many tench between 4pm-7pm and not a whiff any other time now that goes totally against the grain.

Lastly don’t think i am experienced at Wingham as i am not and don’t think i am only blowing my trumpet as i am not i am just giving a view but i am raking in much more fish from their reports i hear tench and Carp. I may not know others but that’s fishing

And if you are waiting for a warm spell forget it. I believe you just have to go and hope it clears up.

ATVB

Dave.

Edited May 24, 2013 by Dave H

[Steve Walker]

I wonder how often finding a nice little pile of food like that results in a trip to the bankside? Maybe a completely different feed/groundbaiting strategy could work?

[gozzer]

With Daves above post in mind, maybe at the next fish in, it would be interesting to say "here's your swim, get on with it". I know Steve and crew go all out to help, especially newcomers, in tackling their allotted swim, but could 30 odd anglers doing 'their own thing', bring surprising results?

 

John.

[Steve Walker]

I think it would bring some surprising results, but also a lot of very unsurprising ones!

[gozzer]

I think it would bring some surprising results, but also a lot of very unsurprising ones!

 

Think positive Steve.

 

John.

[Steve Burke]

With Daves above post in mind, maybe at the next fish in, it would be interesting to say "here's your swim, get on with it". I know Steve and crew go all out to help, especially newcomers, in tackling their allotted swim, but could 30 odd anglers doing 'their own thing', bring surprising results?

 

John.

 

We've done that in the past and results have generally been poor. This is because the key to catching at Wingham is "micro-location". You really do need to find the hotspots.

 

Fish-In regulars will know that it's not so much help with tactics that we give, but rather than pointing out known hotspots.

 

A good example was with Errmm this year. I showed him 2 of the hotspots in his swim. He didn't need the help though as he'd already found the smaller one without me. This is the one that produced his 10-02 tench!

[Anderoo]

It does look like there was something in the swim that it didn't like, and it was after taking a mouthful of something that it suddenly got edgy and decided to leave. Could have been something it recognised or something it had never seen before, but I suspect the former is more likely. That to me looks like a fish that knows it's being fished for.

 

I dunno about being stuck in the past, I thought I did OK last year. Maybe not. I don't know what others caught.

[Anderoo]

With Daves above post in mind, maybe at the next fish in, it would be interesting to say "here's your swim, get on with it". I know Steve and crew go all out to help, especially newcomers, in tackling their allotted swim, but could 30 odd anglers doing 'their own thing', bring surprising results?

 

John.

 

Everyone has that option John, and some people don't want help, which is understandable and totally fine. Sometimes it works out, sometimes not! It's a complex topography though, so being aware of little spots that have produced in the past is probably beneficial, even if people decide not to fish them. Finding your own spots is good too though, as some hotspots do change year on year, depending on weed growth and location of bloodworm beds, etc. A boring flat silty area might be rubbish one year, and red hot the next if suddenly full of bloodworm. (I think with the weather so far behind, the bloodworm beds still haven't really kicked off this year. If/when they do, we will probably see the tench feeding times return to normal, and the previously productive areas start to produce more.)